As I said, it either means there’s very little left to develop (thus not much interest in “development learning” as such) or it wan’t be done on time..

You can’t say “it’s been developed for years and is almost finished” and, in the same time say to the brasilians “you’ll be closely associated with the development of the plane”

Something doesn’t sound right there, does it?

What’s more, if first deliveries have to be done in 2014 (I guess not on Dec 31st 2014), that means that you’d need to build a factory, tools and everything before the end of 2013, thus, having more or less finished the development by then anyway which means that the development needed to reach the operational level should be over by then… that’s 3 years of development left

hi everybody… 🙂

if I can add a thought

Before talking about developing a “navalised” version of the gripen, one has to keep in mind several things:

– SAAB has no experience in naval aircraft (as said before), they’l have to learn and that’s a long and costly process

– navalizing a terrestrial aircraft is something that usually ends up in high expenses for little results. The whole structure has to be heavily reinforced, leading to overweight aircraft, at the expense of payload.

– developing a naval version of the gripen for a build of some 10-12 aircraft brasilians would use would be a complete nonsense, since the whole development budget would have to be included in the price of a dozen of aircraft… such gripen would probably have a higher cost per aircraft than the f-22

– some propose the development of “jump deck” version… if it’s for brasil, it would mean rebuilding the forward part of their carrier (former french carrier Foch)… one would have to add that to the cost of the “sea gripen” itself

Even the Gripen NG which is claimed to be interesting for Brasil as it would participate in its development is a nonsense… if their airforce needs a fighter in some not so distant future, they probably won’t be interested in an aircraft that has yet to be developed, prototype built, tested, etc… spending billions before actually starting to buy the very first aircraft off the production line, somewhere in the 2020’s… What’s more, if they start building their first “4th+” gen fighter or something like that, they’ll have not only to develop a plane, but to acquire the needed knowledge in the same time… how long will it take and will the result perform as expected? Looks like a pretty big gamble to me…

Recovery is a huge issue. None of those carriers have arrestor gear, & without it, landing is impossible.

SAAB is on record as saying that in simulators, with practice, & in good conditions, skilled pilots have been able to land a Gripen on a Nimitz-class carrier unarrested. Note that: Nimitz-class, & only in good conditions. This was publicised as demonstrating the exceptional landing abilities of Gripen. What does that tell you about the feasibility of unarrested landings on smaller carriers?

as you said, in simulators.

What’s more, if you asked a gripen pilot if he could land his fighter on a carrier, he’d probably tell you the answer an F-15 pilot gave to a buddy of mine when asked at the Bourget airshow some 15 years ago:

“yeah, I probably could do it… once.”

😉